Blue Squamosas browning and dying

[Poriferabob]

Hello every one. Over the last few months, I watched as my beautiful 5 inch Blue Squamosa died what seemed a very slow death. It all began with the blue mantle slowly turning more and more brown.I know that "browning" of a clams mantle is usually an indicator of one's lights being too weak. So I took extra measures to make sure that the par levels were between 180 and 200 at the mantle. From what I have found, this is sufficient for squamosas. ( AI PRIME set to 12000k)
What's even weirder however, is that the clam began to retract its mantle further and further over several weeks. Since this a 12 gallon quarantine/auxiliary
(its plumbed in but doesn't hold much for live stock) tank to my 65 gallon seahorse reef, there were no nearby corals or fish that would or could have been the cause of this. Only some snail snot, (vermatids I believe)? Their snot webbing did seem to irritate the clam. But I upped the flow in that tank and would blow it off sometimes.
Its as if the clam had some sort of illness that made it sensitive to light and retract causing it to then brown and eventually starve.
I don't have a clue here. The retracting as though too much light and browning as if not enough.

Any ideas?

 

[bsagea]

Do you know if this was a wild caught squamosa? I ask only because wild caught clams seem to have a very short tank life. As far as what you refer to as snail snot, pyramidal eggs look exactly like a gob of clear snot - sorry, for the vile description.
It's usually located on the underside by the bysal opening. It can take a clams months to die if it's not receiving the light it needs to survive. Sorry for your loss...bsa

 

[Joel B.]

Almost assuredly starving due to lack of light and consuming it's zooxanthellae as a last ditch survival attempt. The mantle retraction is common in clams as they go downhill, usually the start to retract more and more and then they switch to gaping shortly before they go.

FWIW, I've had problems keeping the blue squamosas at <200PAR. I've had better luck at 250-350 with iodine supplementation, but that's anecdotal.